Bill Dodwell

HMRC have just lost another tax case about their management of the Enterprise Investment Scheme. Following their loss in Ames, the First Tier Tribunal has ruled in favour of the taxpayers in Oxbotica Ltd. This is a case about the Seed EIS scheme, designed to help start-ups. Oxbotica was founded to spin out technology from Oxford University, developed by several academics.

After a career in private practice, I’ve just joined the Office of Tax Simplification, as a part-time policy adviser. The OTS is an independent part of the Treasury. I work in a building I’ve often visited – and now have the opportunity to get lost in. The Horse Guards Road/Parliament Street building was one of Gordon Brown’s PFI projects, which broadly coincided with bringing together Treasury and HMRC policy specialists.

The Treasury should be pleased by the Supreme Court’s decision in the Prudential case. The case is one of the long-running claims that the UK’s tax treatment of foreign dividends broke EU free movement of capital rules. The UK changed the law in 2009 – but there’s still plenty of money involved in claims for back years. This particular case is about portfolio dividends, typically held by investment funds, where the shareholding is less than 10% and usually much less.